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Hi all, Ghazwan and co. again demonstrate where their alliegance is. 1) Ghazwan is a Ba'athist and part of Saddam's regime - the fact that he has the access, the time, the money, and the 'freedom' to take part in such a list from Iraq is proof enough of this. He is like the Ba'athist who have the money and time to call me up from Iraq, and speak with me for almost an hour at a time, threatening me, in their stupid and disgusting manner, that they will harm my relatives (who they let me talk to first to prove they are present) if I do not do such and such. Only those loyal to the regime are provided with so much money to do these time- and money-consuming actions in a starving country. 2) The majority of my family are back in Iraq, so you are in no position to question how much issues in Iraq hurt and effect me. I have several family members who have died as a result of sanctions. I also have several family members who have been tortured to death or executed by the regime Ghazwan belongs to. 3) The Iraqi dictatorship estimates (therefore these are not conservative numbers) that 1.5 million Iraqis have died as a result of sanctions. Conservative estimates put the number of Iraqis killed due to Saddam Hussein and his regime at just over 1 million. Now you tell me, is that something to ignore and be silent about? I am not supporting military action in the form it took in Afghanistan, but even if you add up ALL those killed as a result of 'smart' bombs, they are a tiny fraction of those who have been killed and will continue to be killed under Saddam's regime. If you take any US-backed South American dictator, or any other US-backed dictator and count the number killed under them, it is a fraction of what Saddam's regime has and is killing. So to all those who warn of the results of allowing the US to remove Saddam's regime: this is a life and death situation. As a training doctor and as a human being, my priority is to save as many lives as I can. I dream and pray every single day of a free Iraq where there is no dictator, US-backed or otherwise, but I know in the immediate future the only realistic way to lessen the deaths is to support moves to oust Saddam's regime. However, as I and those who care and love the Iraqi people have campaigned, our calls for the removal of Saddam and his regime are also coupled with opposition against doing this via carpet bombing the country and killing thousands of innocent people and against economic sanctions. 4) Finally, what i pasted was an article from a British newspaper, so they are not my words and do not encompass exactly how I think or feel. All those who support a loyal member of Saddam's regime, are either ones themselves, supporters of Saddam, or are not concerned for the Iraqi people but only their ideologies. It sickens me how for decades the Iraqi people have been used by countless sides for their own gain, and how this continues to happen on this list by those who want to apply their ideologies or their alliegances to the situation in Iraq. Yasser Alaskary ----Original Message Follows---- From: "Yasir Al-Wakeel" <yba20@cam.ac.uk> Reply-To: "Yasir Al-Wakeel" <yba20@cam.ac.uk> To: "Dirk Adriaensens" <dirk.adriaensens@skynet.be>, "Yasser Alaskary" <ya1980@hotmail.com>, <soc-casi-discuss@lists.cam.ac.uk> Subject: Re: [casi] March yesterday Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2002 20:02:28 +0100 Dear Dirk and others, I rarely if ever post on this discussion list, but now i feel i have to. I wholeheartedly agree that America's foreign policy has been and remains a brutal one. Similarly, as a member of this list, i can not agree more strongly that sanctions imposed by the UN security council have had a devastating effect on the whole Iraqi nation. Both the moral and legal implications of such a policy that imposes such enormous economic costs on the civilian population of Iraq have been ignored by the international community. The problem with responses like yours and that of Ghazwan Al-Mukhtar is that they automatically equate opposition to Saddam as being compliant with the US, and even more insultingly, Israel. As a Britain of Iraqi origin, many of my relatives remain in Iraq and have suffered under sanctions. They too have suffered under Saddam. Every year for as long as i can remember the Iraqi community in Britain has taken the anniversary of the murder of the Iraqi cleric Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir Al-Sadr as a day to voice its anger against the Iraqi regime. Our cries have not been instigated by America and have not been concerned with oil-politics but have rather been for the Iraqi people. Saddam Hussain had been flagrantly violating human rights long before he started to threaten the global economy. To date, torture is an everyday reality, whilst extrajudicial and arbitrary executions are the norm. The 1997 report of the UN Commission on Human Rights effectively highlights the failure of the Iraqi regime to conform to its obligations imposed by international humanitarian law, whilst the 1997 Amnesty international report of the same year reports over sixteen thousand unsolved 'disappearances'. One wonders whether Iraqi citizens have not suffered enough with a ruthless, despotic regime, merely to be faced with the rest of the world's hostility. These human rights violations, have not suddenly occured in a vacuum and NOR have our protests against them. Anti-Americanism should not lead to such blind accusations. As for; "some 1,200 people marched through central London demanding the overthrow of....... Iraqi President Saddam Hussein." Is this a new CIA-tactic to convince the British population that they should join forces with the USA and invade Iraq? Is this the only possibility? U seem to be suggesting a false dichotomy; if u march against Saddam your with the US, if not your against the US. We know full well the CIA's role in getting the ba'ath party to power, and more significantly the American role in quelling the 1991 Iraqi popular uprising. My own view is that the Iraqi regime, which has played a significant role in the massacarinmg of its own civilians, sanctions as well as US hegemony should be opposed. To neglect the Iraqi regime from this equation is to be both anti-american and anti-Iraqi civilians, and to equate opposition to Saddam as being a puppy for America or Israel is profoundly insulting. Yasir Al-Wakeel Cambridge Universtiy Yasir ----- Original Message ----- From: Dirk Adriaensens <dirk.adriaensens@skynet.be> To: Yasser Alaskary <ya1980@hotmail.com>; <soc-casi-discuss@lists.cam.ac.uk> Sent: Monday, April 08, 2002 12:00 PM Subject: Re: [casi] March yesterday > Dear Yasser and all, > > No one in the world has a worse human rights record than the United States > itself. U.S. wars and CIA coups have left behind a trail of unmatched death > and destruction from Korea to Angola, from Indonesia to Nicaragua, from > Vietnam to Iran. Nor can it be forgotten that U.S. capitalism was erected > upon a foundation of genocide against Native peoples and enslavement of > millions of African people. And in Iraq itself, the greatest cause of death > and suffering is the U.S./UN sanctions blockade that remains in place 11 > years after the Gulf War. As former U.S. Atty. Gen. Ramsey Clark said on > the fifth anniversary of the war in 1996, "There is no greater violation of > human rights anywhere in the world in the last decade of this millennium > than the sanctions against Iraq." And right now Palestine is being > strangled, blown to pieces and murdered by Zionism, with the aid of the USA. > > The blockade of Iraq has taken the lives of more than 1.5 million Iraqis, > half of them children under the age of five years. As is universally > acknowledged, the sanctions blockade only remains in place due to the > insistence of Washington. > > If the given reasons for the ongoing U.S. aggression against Iraq are > false, what is really behind the policy? World-dominion and control over > Iraqi oil. > > One expects a demonstration against this atrocities, but what do I read: > > > Greetings to those who oppose to any new war or any foreign intervention in > Iraq. I didn't intend to react to this, but reading Ghazwan's reply, I felt > I had to support him, and with him the Iraqi people who resist American/UK > imperialism for more than 11 years now. > > Dirk Adriaensens. > > responsable International Peace Mission 12-27 april 2002. > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Yasser Alaskary" <ya1980@hotmail.com> > To: <casi-discuss@lists.casi.org.uk> > Cc: <iraqinews@yahoogroups.com> > Sent: Sunday, April 07, 2002 5:07 PM > Subject: [casi] March yesterday > > > > > http://www.thisislondon.com/dynamic/news/top_story.html?in_review_id=451517&; > in_review_text_id=401742 > > > > > > Marchers demand Saddam is ousted > > > > Some 1,200 people marched through central London demanding the overthrow > of > > Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. > > > > But the protesters, drawn from mainly Iraqi communities across Britain, > > stressed that any military action against the dictator must not harm the > > people of Iraq. > > > > The demonstration, organised by the Iraqi Human Rights Division, called > for > > sanctions against Iraq to be lifted and members of Saddam's regime to be > > charged with committing crimes against humanity and arrested if they leave > > the country. > > > > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > > Join the world's largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. > > http://www.hotmail.com > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. > > To unsubscribe, visit > http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss > > To contact the list manager, email casi-discuss-admin@lists.casi.org.uk > > All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. > To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss > To contact the list manager, email casi-discuss-admin@lists.casi.org.uk > All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp. _______________________________________________ Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss To contact the list manager, email casi-discuss-admin@lists.casi.org.uk All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk